"Foxconn Working With Google on Robotics"

From the Wall Street Journal's Digits blog:

Foxconn has long been associated as the partner for Apple, assembling the majority of the U.S. company’s iPhones and iPads.

But few people know the Taiwanese contract manufacturer, also known as Hon Hai Precision industry, has been quietly working with Google.

People familiar with the matter told The Wall Street Journal that Foxconn has been working with former Android executive Andy Rubin since last year to carry out the U.S. company’s vision for robotics.

To speed up robot deployment at its own factories, Foxconn Chairman Terry Gou met with Rubin in Taipei recently and they discussed new robotic technologies, they said.

At the meeting, Gou expressed excitement over new automation technologies demonstrated by Rubin, they said. Rubin also asked Gou to help integrate a technology company that Google is acquiring as Foxconn’s strength lies in mechanical engineering.

Google set up a new robotics group and acquired eight robotics companies last year, including Boston Dynamics, an engineering company that has designed mobile research robots for the Pentagon. The New York Times first reported Google’s robotics efforts and the acquisitions in December.

The report also said the targets of Google’s new robotics team are in manufacturing — such as electronics assembly, which is now largely manual — and competing with companies like Amazon in retailing.

The cooperation comes as Foxconn has been striving to accelerate automation efforts at its factories amid challenges of rising labor costs and workplace disputes in China, where it has more than a million workers. Foxconn’s chairman has reiterated his ambitions to build factories with robots in recent years as the company seeks to transform itself into a high-tech manufacturer focusing on high-margin, capital-intensive products such as automobile and medical equipment....MORE